


Monkey See, Monkey Do

by quiets



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Brief descriptions of fire/burning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 15:24:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11466372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiets/pseuds/quiets
Summary: Quiet's first meeting with a young mantis. About two sentences of Flaming Buffalo that weren't worth adding her character tag for.





	Monkey See, Monkey Do

Each downward movement of a dragonfly’s long, translucent wings is a beat lingering just below a melody of sound. Above it lay the noises of a restless summer: the ocean waves pawing at orange struts, the flutter of a drooping poster in the humid breeze, the distant chatter of bored men. The sharpened attunement to Quiet’s senses had overwhelmed her initially, turning her surroundings into a tangled mass of sound and light. More accustomed to her perceptions now, she hums gently from her resting place in the cage’s shade, adding her own soft notes to the swirl of noise.

Even lazing out of the sun’s hot glare came with the discomfort of midday. Beads of sweat collect in the dip of her collarbone and roll down her shoulder like little soldiers marching a solemn line. As Quiet brushes at the droplets, the fleeting sensation of parasites reaching back to her touch passes through her awareness.

The heat presses down upon her like a weight, filling her with a drowsiness that sits heavy behind half-closed eyes. A soft blur begins to overtake the vivid array of sensory input around her, fading harsh edges and muffling sound waves that skitter through the humid air. She counts the faint beats of the bug’s wings as the world gently makes itself farther and farther away.

One, two.

One, two.

The steady rhythm begins to lose its shape, a precise pulse deforming into unpredictability and erraticism. What had been an uncomfortable temperature climbs to unbearable, to burning, to suffocating. When Quiet opens her eyes again, her vision is engulfed by gnawing flames rising from seared flesh.

She’s had this dream before. The initial burst of fire is a frenzy of pain that overwhelms but doesn’t overtake. She struggles on the cold tile, outstretched muscle against lapping inferno, desperate to reach the blade glinting on the floor. The second bout of flame is all-consuming, driving her backwards in frantic footwork towards the window.

One, two.

The glass shards shine around her like a million pinpoints of light.

One, two.

When Quiet jolts awake, her vision slowly brings the faint, scattered stars of twilight back into focus. The air around her is cooler now, wrapped in long shadows and carried by a stronger breeze. Though her ragged breath begins to slow with the reminder of safety, something is still nagging at the edges of her awareness. A faint breathing, muffled by some obstruction, replaces the earlier rhythm of the bug.

In the sun’s fading light, no shapes linger nearby to provide any source for the sound. She sits up, scanning the dark cage around her until a small flicker draws her eyes to the bars across from her cot. In the dull glow of the lamp mounted just outside rows of metal, the air shifts unnaturally in a small space. The ripples are faint and infrequent, as if whatever may be hiding there is hardly moving. When her eyes focus on the spot, she can feel the short jolt of movement that responds.

Quiet hesitates. If whatever was with her now intended harm, it surely would have taken a chance before its presence had been noticed. Though wary, she raises her hand in a slow wave.

The air shudders once more before a small form slowly makes itself visible against the dusk of day. A human child returns her gaze, curious eyes shielded by the lenses of a mask. The shirt is much too long for its body, arms more a shapeless mass of drooping fabric than any distinctive lines. Feet, barren of sock or shoe, hover just above the cool ground. When Quiet returns her gaze upwards, the small tufts of red hair erupting against leather straps remind her of the fire she had seen only moments before.

The child drifts backwards from the cage, head tilted, a curious mantis perched upon the wall. They watch each other in silence as the breeze tugs them both and gently sways the floating form before her. As she listens, she hears soft breaths slow, as if comforted by the oscillating movement.

_“Who are you?”_

Though she can hear the words clearly, no noise disrupts the air between them. The words gently tuck themselves between her own thoughts, as if the question had come from within the bone confines of her skull. The voice, however, is nothing like her own, young and high in its thickly accented tones. The boy reminds her of a spying fly, observing from a distance, inquisitive but shy.

Through the abrupt wave of disbelief, she knows there shouldn’t be much left to surprise her. With the changes to her own body, who was she to question anyone else’s differences?

_“Tixij,”_ she responds in kind, unable to put the sounds to her tongue.

_“Ti…xij. Ti…xij.”_

For months, speech had eluded Quiet. A wordless voice had felt no more useful than a bowless violin, unable to reach its true range of expression. She could pluck simple notes, yet the task of stringing them together remained unreachably complex. No message of substance could be borne from the instrument without the tools to produce it. Finally presented again with the promise of conversation, she chooses her wording carefully. The eastern accent is easily recognized in the child’s internal voice; rather than the English nickname she’d been granted by her boss, she offers the name she had been called by the Russian soldiers instead.

The repetition of syllables crafts renewed rhythm, a delicate backdrop upon which everything else hangs. He continues the soft chant even after disappearing again from her vision, as if beckoning her to follow.

With her newfound physiology, the bars that surround do little to confine her to the small cell beneath the medical platform. Just as the child phases from sight, Quiet follows in suit. Monkey see, monkey do. She slips out into the open night, pausing on the surface to soak in the last of the sun’s fleeting warmth while it sinks below the swaying waves. When her attention is roused again by a movement in the air near her, she sees the soft outlines of a mimicked pose, arms outstretched and head back, before he takes note of her gaze and quickly begins to move once more.

He reminds her of the shy children that had arrived on base mere weeks ago, bashful and hesitant at the sight of her. The nervousness that had gripped them, however, didn’t make itself present now—rather, a playfulness that was gently coaxed out by the familiarity of shared difference, the safeness in their mirrored gaps in humanity.

In the fading light, the medical platform is a playground. Tired soldiers lean wearily into walls and railings, arms crossed against slow-rising chests, unaware of the formless shapes gliding through the air before them. A woman with short, tied hair takes a long drag of a cigarette, smoke pluming from an open mouth and into the night. As Quiet’s leap carries her through the space before her, the guard blinks confusedly at the quick dispersal of smoke, hand tensing against her holster before shrugging the shock away.

Nestled beneath her thoughts, the rhythm of Quiet’s alias begins to advance. The syllables gently coalesce, a quickened beat behind her eyes, _“Tixij, Tixij, Tixij.”_ There’s a certainty to it, now, his tone no longer calculative or hesitant. She wonders if he can sense her lack of aggression, if he can hear the absence of intent. She wonders, maybe, if it were simply because of their shared differences. She wonders if it’s all of the above; she wonders if it’s something she’ll never be able to grasp.

The highest point on the medical platform stands tall into the hazy sky: a rooftop of a central tower, topped with winking red guide lights that surround the helipad. Quiet follows after the child in a race to the top, scrambling up juts and ledges, until she reaches his perching spot in the soft glow. He allows her to settle next to him, tilting his now-visible mask at her one last time before turning his attention to the horizon.

Only a sliver of the sun is left above the ocean. It spreads its golden light over a small band of water, as if the clouds had spilled honey rather than rain over the surface of the waves.

Although she could think anything in this moment and have her words understood, Quiet remains settled in silence. It had been so long since she had had a genuine moment of connection with anyone—longer, even, than she had been infected with the parasites. Immersed in the playful games of a child, she felt more alive and awake than in any recent memory. Though he was no son of hers, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of protectiveness.

What had brought him here?

What had tangled him in the war—for why else would he be on a military base so far from home?

She keeps the thoughts pushed to the back of her mind, uneasy at the thought of interrogating someone so young. Though the chant of her name had ceased in the shared mental space between them, his feet kick back and forth against the side of the tower, following the rhythm that had since quieted. The two were much like the dragonfly she had listened to, carried far from land, whether by air or by sea, stranded over the only solid ground for miles upon miles. The sun recedes, honey returning to cold blue, stars hovering like a million points of light, a million pieces of glass, long since scattered from something whole.

When Quiet turns to smile at the child, he’s gone.


End file.
